Ban on protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools should be considered, Dreyfus tells royal commission

Mark Dreyfus told the antisemitism royal commission that restrictions on protests similar to those that apply to abortion clinics may be needed for synagogues and Jewish schools. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP View image in fullscreen Mark Dreyfus told the antisemitism royal commission that restrictions on protests similar to those that apply to abortion clinics may be needed for synagogues and Jewish schools. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Ban on protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools should be considered, Dreyfus tells royal commission Former attorney general also describes receiving antisemitic abuse, saying he was labelled a ‘genocidal Zionist’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Former attorney general Mark Dreyfus has called on governments to consider banning protests outside synagogues and Jewish schools, invoking a high court decision allowing restrictions outside abortion clinics. The federal Labor backbencher has told the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion the laws should be considered in the light of a 2019 high court decision which upheld safe access zone laws in Victoria and Tasmania which prohibit protests within 150 metres of clinics. “It’s time to consider whether we need some similar restriction on protest activity outside synagogues, on protest activity outside schools and Jewish places of gathering, not to ban political protest … but rather to protect … Jewish Australians,” Dreyfus said on Monday. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Last year, the New South Wales government reintroduced laws restricting protests that block or threaten a person accessing a place of worship, after an earlier law restricting protests near a place of worship was struck down. The royal commission’s fifth block of hearings, starting in Melbourne this week, is examining security arrangements for the Jewish community, including the role of the Jewish Community Security Group (CSGs) and their coordination with law enforcement agencies. As an Australian Jew who publicly supports Palestinian freedom, I’m targeted by my own community – and neo-Nazis | Sarah Schwartz Read more At the start of Monday’s hearing, counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC said evidence would show “a substantial and ongoing threat to the safety and security of the Jewish community in Australia”, leading to a “shrinking of Jewish communal life”, including because of the financial burden of employing security guards. Dreyfus, who is Jewish, told the commission on Monday that following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, he had been shocked by the “breach of that sense of safety” previously created by providing asylum to Jewish refugees, including his father, who came to Australia in 1939 as an 11-year-old from Nazi Germany. He said his former role as a Jewish member of the cabinet in the Albanese government’s first term had put him in a “unique position”, which he said had